I do not like the parent population at my kids school

[Anonymous]

OP if I were you I'd consider whether you don't like the parent community because a) the parents are somewhat mean and unfriendly, or b) you just don't click with them.

In my experience parents (ok, especially moms) who have that mean girl / exclusive / judgy vibe definitely, 100% end up with children who have the same attitude. And eventually (maybe around 4th or 5th grade?) it will become unpleasant for your child, if that's not your thing (because you, and your kid, will be on the outside). There are inevitably some of these at every school, but if there are so many that they really dominate the social scene, I'd consider looking at other schools.

But if the issue is you just don't click with other parents, I would give it time. We didn't click with parents at my kids' school at first (like, for several years), but eventually we did find parents we like and even those we don't click with are nice enough to talk to at school events. Familiarity breeds fondness, so parents I had nothing to talk to about when our kids were in K I suddenly have plenty to talk to about now that they're in 4th, because they (and we) now have so much more in common.

[Anonymous]

This is part of the reason we don't do private. Your kids peers are children of these jerks. Most kids who go to private come from unfettered privilege and aren't taught any perspective. The parents are obnoxious AF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I was a parent and teacher at the same school. Parents would vent to me about these kinds of things.

Not saying this is your situation, but some things that came up:

1) A kid would not get invited to playdates (and the parents would get shunned) because the kid got in trouble in class. Small things like drawing a weird picture (violent) or pulling on someone's pony tail. Instead of criticizing the kid directly, parents would avoid the family b/c their kid was uncomfortable.

2) Drinking. Too much or too little. (You or them)

3) People going through marital issues themselves kept their circle of friends close. They are holding on to people they trust and worry about newbies.

4) Competition. Some people would have their kids trying out for travel sports or theatre and would avoid talented kids b/c they didn't want more people in the ring fighting for their spot.

5) The scarlet letter. You could have made friends with someone that other people don't like to be around. Join a committee. It sucks but you will get the inside scoop.

6) Less money. Not that you have less money (who cares), but that someone has a smaller house or something and they don't want to "host" a playdate, but they can't necessarily come to yours. Larger group events in a financially neutral place, like a park by school, could help.

7) Someone is creepy. Could be a sibling or a spouse or something else. I have avoided playdates where the supervision is "loose" and some parent I liked as friends, I had to side-step because one of my kids didn't like their scary dog, the way "Grandma" insisted on hugs & kisses from friends, etc., or a brother always wanted to wrestle. Not saying you have that going on, but it is the kind of thing you wouldn't say out loud, but work around.

8) Language. Cursing or off-color stories. I heard a parent cursing in a restaurant yesterday (kid was in middle school) and I was relieved that they had good communication, but I know some parents would be clutching their pearls.

If you go to a lot of events and share group photos with other parents it is an unobtrusive way to connect.

Yes- all true. But there are some people at every school who have friends from preschool or their club and are not interested in adding more to the mix even if you’re fun and great. Some of those people, rude as it is, won’t respond to a text or email. Tell your kid this other kid/the mom are very busy and wait for another play date option emerges. It doesn’t feel good, but please know it happens.

This. Op sorry and I totally can see how it can affect your experience. Some schools are notorious for having a smaller dominant social group run everything in the community and they let it be known that they are friends and their kids are friends and you are not. That can make social events uncomfortable and yes parents should be able to connect and feel good at their kids schools. Don’t shame op.

I just witness a mean mom totally put her back to another mom at an event the other night. It was so rude and so obvious to me and others. I tried to include the other mom but she gave up and walked away. I have seen this same mean mom and her friends do this on several occasions.

was this STA?

I find it interesting that so many schools are having events but you guessed STA. Are you part of the mean mom group behaving so boorishly? The behavior is noticed by many and it is absolutely appalling.

I can't tell by your post. are you saying that this behavior is going on at STA and is noticed by many? Because we have noticed it. It's been really hard to deal with.

[Anonymous]

A few months ago my mom mentioned how much of an outsider she felt at my private high school growing up. We talked more about it and, completely unbeknownst to me, thrrr was some real crappy mean girl behavior she dealt with.
But she said that I was so happy there, and clearly thriving, that it just didn’t matter - she had good friends and a good job, so she just put on a happy face and the various mother/daughter events and then went on with her life.

The school is for your kid. If your kid is happy there, just suck it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP if I were you I'd consider whether you don't like the parent community because a) the parents are somewhat mean and unfriendly, or b) you just don't click with them.

In my experience parents (ok, especially moms) who have that mean girl / exclusive / judgy vibe definitely, 100% end up with children who have the same attitude. And eventually (maybe around 4th or 5th grade?) it will become unpleasant for your child, if that's not your thing (because you, and your kid, will be on the outside). There are inevitably some of these at every school, but if there are so many that they really dominate the social scene, I'd consider looking at other schools.

But if the issue is you just don't click with other parents, I would give it time. We didn't click with parents at my kids' school at first (like, for several years), but eventually we did find parents we like and even those we don't click with are nice enough to talk to at school events. Familiarity breeds fondness, so parents I had nothing to talk to about when our kids were in K I suddenly have plenty to talk to about now that they're in 4th, because they (and we) now have so much more in common.

It happens earlier than 4th or 5th grade. Kids pick up behavior fast. There was a girl at 1st grade who was making a birthday list of who to invite and my DD was new to the school. My DD asked if she could come and the girl told her no but if you're nice to me and I like you I'll invite you next year. And she proceeded to make a deal about her birthday and who was invited. This went on dor a month. I met her mom and it was so obvious where she got it from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and I don't know what to do about it. It is a great school but I am miserable.My kids seem happy and that its what matters. I am miserable

You must be at Flint Hill.

I was thinking of another school. Are they like this at Flint Hill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How on earth could this make you miserable? You aren't going to school there, your kid is. You can't make polite conversation for 5 minutes with whoever sits next to you on parent night?

There you are! You're the person OP is talking about.

OP said SHE doesn’t like the other parents. When I encounter people I don’t particularly care for, I make conversation when I see them and move on with my life. It doesn’t make ME miserable if I don’t like someone. OP didn’t say the other parents were being rude or mean or exclusive. That would bother me, too.

are you being purposefully obtuse? It would seem so.

OP doesn't like the other parents because they are insular, not friendly, etc. I'm sure she has tried to have conversations with them. She is likely seeking friendship and being rebuffed. Or maybe is having her conversations rebuffed entirely.
It's not crazy nor pathetic to want to make friends at your kids' school. We made most of our DC friends at our kids' schools. We moved here not knowing a soul. Sure, I'd love to pick up hobbies or volunteer work as a source of friends but I don't have a ton
of time for that between my kids and my job. It would have been a major bummer if I felt like I was given the cold shoulder at my kids' school. I'm not alone in thinking this.


These posts about friendship and/or snobbiness on DCUM never go well. Half the posters commiserate with the OP and the other half essentially make fun of the OP and others like her for being pathetic or weak enough to want to make friends in their school community.
It's always the same outcome.

OP--please know that you're not alone. I'm not sure what the answer is besides 1)find a few people you connect with at the school and really invest in them--invite them over for dinner, etc. 2) change schools. Often it's just a grade that is toxic. You may just need to leave.

No, I’m not. I’ve met a lot of people who are hostile about rich people or sahms, and so they assume they will not like anyone at private. Another poster in this thread said it : “This is part of the reason we don't do private. Your kids peers are children of these jerks. Most kids who go to private come from unfettered privilege and aren't taught any perspective. The parents are obnoxious AF.”

I’m a working mom who came from a blue collar family, and yeah, there are people who aren’t necessarily going to be my best friends because I don’t travel on a private plane to the Caribbean every long weekend, I don’t understand their clothes, and I’m not at the volunteer things they participate in because I have to go to work. But they are perfectly nice people that I can chat with on the sidelines or sit next to at the holiday concert. Beyond that there are A LOT of families in a school, and there are a significant number of families like mine. They might be harder to find because both parents are working! It would be a shame if I had written them all off as vapid billionaires. The sahms are more visible because they are available to volunteer (and I thank them for doing so). But assuming the whole school is like that group - and I’m sure that group is horrible in some schools and great in others — isn’t fair.

If people are being mean to OP or purposely excluding her; then yes that is awful. But that’s not what she said. She said SHE doesn’t like the other parents. IME when people say that they are referring to wealth and sahms and their preconceived notions about both.

[Anonymous]

So, this is my situation as well. My son is in 7th grade in a school that only goes to 8th grade so it's not going to change.

Over time, I've just accepted that it's not going to change.

Also, over time, the parents of my kids' friends are people I smile at or can chat with.

Part of this for me comes from the fact that I was good friends with my son's preschool classmates' parents. (He went to a preschool not associated with his current school.) Meanwhile, the kids who went to the preschool at his current school had parents who became very close in those years. I was never going to be their friend, but they are still very close.

All of that is fine. Are they insular and cliquish? I mean, yes? But it's understandable and fine because it's not my school. It's my kid's school. So my opinion on the matter is ancillary.

Which is not to say that it didn't bother me. It did for a while. But then I got over it because it really doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Why would you assume SAHM are all vapid or rude? Being rich doesn’t mean you aren’t well educated, smart or kind. Most SAHM I know are lovely and generous with their time. Maybe stop stereotyping people and see what happens??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP if I were you I'd consider whether you don't like the parent community because a) the parents are somewhat mean and unfriendly, or b) you just don't click with them.

In my experience parents (ok, especially moms) who have that mean girl / exclusive / judgy vibe definitely, 100% end up with children who have the same attitude. And eventually (maybe around 4th or 5th grade?) it will become unpleasant for your child, if that's not your thing (because you, and your kid, will be on the outside). There are inevitably some of these at every school, but if there are so many that they really dominate the social scene, I'd consider looking at other schools.

But if the issue is you just don't click with other parents, I would give it time. We didn't click with parents at my kids' school at first (like, for several years), but eventually we did find parents we like and even those we don't click with are nice enough to talk to at school events. Familiarity breeds fondness, so parents I had nothing to talk to about when our kids were in K I suddenly have plenty to talk to about now that they're in 4th, because they (and we) now have so much more in common.

It happens earlier than 4th or 5th grade. Kids pick up behavior fast. There was a girl at 1st grade who was making a birthday list of who to invite and my DD was new to the school. My DD asked if she could come and the girl told her no but if you're nice to me and I like you I'll invite you next year. And she proceeded to make a deal about her birthday and who was invited. This went on dor a month. I met her mom and it was so obvious where she got it from.

Terrible manners and attitude.

We saw such a girl go steps farther at a young age and order others around - who to play with, who to invite, what to do when.

[Anonymous]

OP is a parent of high schoolers, not elementary schoolers, and I find this kind of shocking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is a parent of high schoolers, not elementary schoolers, and I find this kind of shocking.

DP. It would have shocked me before but not now. I have seen mean moms in full force this year already on a few occasions. I don’t know what’s going on and whether people are forgetting how to be kind because of the pandemic or has the world just made people more cruel and jaded? One instance Friends and I standing nearby literally had to intervene and diffuse a very cruel and uncomfortable situation because a group of mean moms were literally putting their backs up to a mom and icing her out of a group and then they were purposely talking to everyone but her. It was so obvious and intentional. They have a reputation of being as such but I had never personally witnessed it. I now have seen it first hand and I think very differently about them all and not in a positive way. So point is op I completely empathize with you if this is anything like what you are encountering!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is a parent of high schoolers, not elementary schoolers, and I find this kind of shocking.

DP. It would have shocked me before but not now. I have seen mean moms in full force this year already on a few occasions. I don’t know what’s going on and whether people are forgetting how to be kind because of the pandemic or has the world just made people more cruel and jaded? One instance Friends and I standing nearby literally had to intervene and diffuse a very cruel and uncomfortable situation because a group of mean moms were literally putting their backs up to a mom and icing her out of a group and then they were purposely talking to everyone but her. It was so obvious and intentional. They have a reputation of being as such but I had never personally witnessed it. I now have seen it first hand and I think very differently about them all and not in a positive way. So point is op I completely empathize with you if this is anything like what you are encountering!

Maybe? It seems like an insane thing to complain about from a parent of high schoolers. I don’t even understand how OP had enough contact with other parents to come to this conclusion.

I would totally understand if OP had kids in elementary. But in high school? This seems very, very off.

[Anonymous]

Assuming OP’s child started the day after Labor Day, like most local independent schools, her DD has been in school 14 days total. Hardly enough time to make friends!

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why this would make YOU miserable. No one is forcing you to spend any time with the parents.